The Webb Ellis Cup in Table Mountain National Park on day one of the Rugby World Cup trophy tour last week.
Photograph: Luke Walker/World Rugby via Getty Images

Leading players from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga will vote on whether to boycott the 2019 World Cup in a remarkable response to World Rugby’s controversial proposal to omit the Pacific Island nations from its planned annual competition.

In a move that could throw this year’s tournament into unprecedented chaos, the representative body Pacific Rugby Players Welfare (PRPW) is canvassing its 600 members – including England’s Samoa-born centre Manu Tuilagi – over a potential “legitimate player protest” in response to World Rugby’s “calamitous” plan.

Rugby union’s World League plans risk forfeiting the game’s soul

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The threat comes after details of World Rugby’s latest proposal became public on Thursday and were greeted with uproar for its attempts to exile the Pacific Island nations. The proposed World League would consist of 12 teams – the Six Nations and Rugby Championship as well as Japan and the USA, excluding Fiji, Samoa and Tonga for financial reasons – and start as soon as 2020. There are also fears the World League would not include promotion or relegation, signalling “the death of Pacific Island rugby” according to another representative body, Pacific Rugby Players. As result, both organisations are calling on the unions of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga to join them in taking action.

“The World Cup would lose. I don’t think the competition could go ahead if you took out a quarter of the players,” Dan Leo, the former Samoa captain and head of PRPW, said. “We provide almost 20% of all professional players in terms of heritage and almost a quarter of the players at the next World Cup will be of Pacific Islands heritage. That’s where our strength lies and that’s how we can mobilise.”

Amid widespread condemnation for what the Rugby Football Union described as an “undercooked” proposal, World Rugby sought to play down reports of the Pacific Islands snub. The vice-chairman, Agustín Pichot, insisted he was in favour of promotion and relegation – the inference being that the Six Nations are not – but regardless, Leo believes plans for the new league must be stopped.

“This would be a disaster for the Pacific Island nations, and for any nation omitted from the top 12 teams,” Leo said. “Even if promotion and relegation were involved, all that would happen would be that the top teams would pull away from the rest.”

The threat of a World Cup boycott comes after leading players from around the world joined forces with International Rugby Players to condemn World Rugby’s proposal. The England captain Owen Farrell, New Zealand captain Kieran Read and world player of the year Johnny Sexton were among those to voice fierce criticism over concerns that the World League was “money-driven” and showed scant regard for player welfare.

The proposed league would culminate in semi-finals and a final, meaning five Tests in consecutive weeks for some players. Farrell said: “Players are open to discussing a new global season, but what we develop has to work with the club game in order to reduce conflict, deal with player release issues and make sure their welfare is looked after. The proposal doesn’t seem to have considered this properly.”